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Carlos Emilio Arita Lara , or Porfirio Montúfar Arita , alias “El Muco” according to the document he carried, built his reputation among the mountains of Copán as the executive arm of the Los Valle clan .
The confusion caused by his double identity, the result of a second procedure in the National Registry of Persons (RNP) in 2004 , protected him for years.
However, the evidence was clear: Arita and Montúfar were the same person, as confirmed by the RNP.
The alias “Mili el Muco” not only identified him as the head of Los Valle hitmen, but also as an efficient administrator, in charge of keeping the drug corridors to the United States operational.
But his reputation as a bloodthirsty thug made him a feared figure, even within the cartel.
A seemingly innocent loan revealed the cruelty of “El Muco.” According to witnesses, Arita Lara borrowed a backhoe to facilitate his macabre task: opening a clandestine cemetery in the mountains of Copán.
There, in graves dug with mechanical precision, he buried his victims, both those he personally murdered and those executed under the orders of his bosses, Miguel Arnulfo and Luis Alonso Valle , Infobae revealed in 2023.
The story of the backhoe became a legend in the region. A former official, speaking anonymously, recounted how this machinery simplified the work of burying bodies en masse, ensuring that the secrets of Los Valles remained hidden underground.
Drug trafficking and social terror
The influence of “El Muco” was not limited to drug trafficking. In Copán, his group committed acts of terror against the local population.
Stories of armed youths imposing their law and abusing girls are recalled with horror by a priest in the region.
Even the Honduran authorities knew about the existence of the clandestine cemetery, but they never acted.
“They were untouchable. If you bothered someone in the clan, your life was at risk,” said an officer who closely followed the cartel’s trail between 2012 and 2016.
The final blow and the fall of “El Muco”
Following the capture of the Valle leaders in 2014, Arita assumed a temporary leadership role, although, according to one investigator, his true passion was not commanding, but killing.
The power vacuum generated violent internal adjustments, until “El Muco” took refuge in Guatemala, from where he continued to operate.
The peace did not last long. In October 2015, Guatemalan authorities arrested him in Izabal, near the Honduran border.
His extradition to the United States put him behind bars, where he is currently serving a 25-year sentence in a federal prison in Texas.
The legacy of blood and cocaine
Despite the arrests, the drug trafficking corridor remains active in Copán. The heirs of Los Valle have taken up the routes and methods, operating under new structures that impose their dominance with the same terror tactics.
A recent police report indicates that successor groups are consolidating their control during the current administration.
The US State Department has warned of increasing violence linked to drug trafficking in Honduras.
Meanwhile, in the mountains of Copán, the secrets buried by “El Muco” remain as a reminder that the criminal past is not as far away as it seems.
His name, like that of Los Valle, is a somber echo that resonates in every bullet fired, in every kilo of cocaine trafficked and in every life lost in the bowels of a system corrupted by the power of organized crime .
